Our newest warship’s guns have no bullets — not to worry, they’re only $800K apiece!

❝ Barely two weeks after the US Navy commissioned its newest and most futuristic warship, armed with two huge guns that can hit targets 80 miles away, the service is moving to cancel the projectiles for the guns, citing excessive costs that run up to $800,000 per round or more.

The Long Range Land-Attack Projectile (LRLAP) is a guided precision munition that is key to the DDG 1000 Zumwalt-class’s mission as a land-attack destroyer, able to hit targets with such accuracy that, in the words of manufacturer Lockheed Martin, can “defeat targets in the urban canyons of coastal cities with minimal collateral damage.”

❝ The LRLAP is the only munition designed to be fired from the DDG 1000’s Advanced Gun System (AGS), a 155mm/62-caliber gun with an automated magazine and handling system. Each of the three Zumwalts will carry two of the guns – the largest weapons to be designed for and fitted on a warship since World War II…

For the record, the Navy would not comment directly on the effort to kill LRLAP.

RTFA for the rest of the soap opera. Prodigious waste of money and wholly counter to the accepted lies about our Department of “Defense”. Since the critter is designed to attack coastal and inland cities.

One thought on “Our newest warship’s guns have no bullets — not to worry, they’re only $800K apiece!”

“USN considers options for replacing Zumwalt’s LRLAP projectile” (12/29/16) http://www.janes.com/article/66566/usn-considers-options-for-replacing-zumwalt-s-lrlap-projectile “The Long Range Land Attack Projectile (LRLAP), originally designed for USS Zumwalt ‘s (DDG 1000) Advanced Gun System (AGS), has become too expensive and the US Navy (USN) is exploring options to replace the round, sources told IHS Jane’s.
However, AGS was built specifically by BAE Systems to handle only LRLAP rounds, which means there are few, if any, projectiles that could seamlessly transition to fill the 155 mm requirement. The navy is considering two potential options: Raytheon’s 155 mm Excalibur 1b and BAE Systems’ Multi-Service Standard Guided Projectile (MS-SGP). A third option could be to speed development of the Hyper Velocity Projectile (HVP) that was originally designed for the electromagnetic railgun.
BAE Systems and Raytheon declined to comment for this story.
Industry sources said the navy is leaning towards Excalibur because it is the only one of those three projectiles currently in production. It is unlikely to be a one-for-one replacement whichever route the navy takes to replace the LRLAP (currently priced between USD800,000 and USD1 million per projectile, while Excalibur costs about USD68,000 per round).”